* * *
They piled into Mick’s Toyota wagon, and after negotiating the succession of traffic “roundabouts” to exit the airport, they were soon heading south on the main road into the city, still wet from rain earlier that morning, and congested by slow-moving crawls of traffic interspersed with Atha Cliath’s bright-green, double-decker buses. Despite the gray sky, the chill and the damp in the air, and the sooty countenances of the old buildings—after Boston, Pittsburgh, and the West Coast, Corrigan found it exhilarating to be back among the narrow streets with their lines of shopfronts and busy sidewalks. There were trees and Christmas lights in the windows, pubs carrying signs for Guinness stout and Harp lager, local branches of the Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks, and the “To Let” signs had names of auctioneers, not realtors.
“You know, this old city might be showing its age and crumbling in parts, but it’s nice to be back in a place that was built for people to live in, not automobiles to flow through,” he remarked fondly as he took it all in. “It’s a good thing that they never let too many planners loose to improve it.”
“The only way you could improve this mess would be by bombing it,” Mick growled as the lights turned back to red a second time without the line moving.
* * *
Evelyn had wanted to see Trinity College, where Corrigan had earned his degree. He had warned that the wrong end of an eastbound trans-Atlantic red-eye flight would not be the best time for satisfying that kind of curiosity, and by this time she was in full agreement. So they postponed that item, and instead crossed the Liffey via the East Link toll bridge in the heart of Dublin’s dockland to follow the coast road to Corrigan’s hometown of Dun Laoghaire. Apparently, more people were gathering there to greet them.
“I didn’t realize I was so popular,” Corrigan said, permitting himself a small dash of self-flattery when he was told.
“And who said you were?” Mick challenged. “It’s just a good excuse for a party. Sure, they don’t even remember who you are.”
Evelyn smiled to herself in the back with Kathleen. Evidently, immodesty did not sit well with the Irish.
Then came the cross-examination on Corrigan’s work and what he had been doing—wearying after the journey, but to be expected. But behind the banter and lighthearted digs that never let up, Evelyn detected sincere curiosity and a genuine respect for his achievements overseas. Then it was Corrigan’s turn to ask the questions, and the talk degenerated into a cataloging of names, and who was where and doing what these days, most of which meant nothing to her.
Mick, despite the wild-bachelor image that Evelyn had formed, was now married and working with the European Economic Community on economic modeling. Dermot said that the one thing he had in common with economists was that he didn’t understand economics.
Kathleen was a systems analyst with British Aircraft Corporation, come back to Ireland for the holidays and the “craic.” As far as Evelyn could make out, this was something of a catchall term for generally having a good time. Corrigan told her that along with reproduction and education, it made up most of the country’s export industry.
Dermot seemed to have worked the most closely with Corrigan in former years. He was still with their former professor, Brendan Maguire, who had moved away from Dublin’s urban environs to set up an EEC-funded research outpost of Trinity at what sounded like a remote spot, called Ballygarven, near Galway on the west coast.
“What’s Brendan doing there?” Corrigan asked.
“What he’s always been interested in: a bottom-up approach to AI,” Dermot replied. “Your kind of thing, Joe. Now that he’s got himself away from all the bureaucracy and the politics, he’s able to do things his own way. Basically, he’s defining clusters of agents as elementary software entities and letting them evolve. We call them his `insects.’ ”
“A Minsky approach,” Corrigan said.
“Exactly.”
“I worked with Minsky for a bit while I was at MIT.”
“I know. That’s why I think you’d be interested. We’ll have to try and get you over while you’re here.”